Overwhelming odds: History says Clarett faces many obstacles in attempt to revive his football career

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Aug 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2010 at 1:19 PM

Charles E. Smith desperately wants to talk to Maurice Clarett. Wants to warn him about the whispers. About the angles. Wants to encourage him to stop listening to the good as well as the bad.

Charles E. Smith desperately wants to talk to Maurice Clarett. Wants to warn him about the whispers. About the angles. Wants to encourage him to stop listening to the good as well as the bad.

Smith wants Clarett to know, to understand, that everything will be different now. Everything. The former Boston Celtics guard, who spent 21/2 years in prison after being convicted of vehicular homicide in the hit-and-run deaths of two Boston University students in 1991, wants Clarett to realize the what-ifs are unavoidable. The memories are inerasable. That said, life cannot be lived in the past. Keep moving forward.

These are the things Smith wants to tell Clarett, who on Monday was released from the Columbus dormitory-style transitional facility where he had spent the past 41/2 months. Before that, Clarett served 31/2 years of a seven-year sentence in a Toledo prison after pleading guilty in 2006 to aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon.

Imprisonment cost Clarett, 26, nearly four years of his football career, although at the time of his arrest and conviction, that career already was in peril. The Denver Broncos selected the Youngstown native in the third round of the 2005 NFL draft but released him during the preseason. It was another blow in the downward spiral of an athlete who, as a freshman in 2002, scored the winning touchdown in the second overtime of the Fiesta Bowl against the University of Miami to lead the Buckeyes to their first national championship since 1968.

Clarett took the first step toward resurrecting his once promising pro career last week when he requested a tryout with the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League. Today in Omaha, he is scheduled to attend a closed workout with the Nighthawks, who stressed, "The level of success of the workout will determine whether or not a contract will be offered."

Is it reasonable to think Clarett can be successful in football after spending nearly seven years - he played only one season at OSU before being suspended for a year, then dropping out of school - away from the game?

Michael Vick, 30, returned to the NFL after spending 21 months in prison for his role in an interstate dog-fighting ring. His current role as a backup quarterback with the Philadelphia Eagles lacks the luster of the six seasons he spent with the Atlanta Falcons, but at least he was able to resume a pro career that still pays him a handsome salary. Former Cleveland Browns running back Jamal Lewis - four months served in 2005 for trying to set up a drug deal - and current Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Tank Johnson - 60 days in 2007 for violating probation on a 2005 weapons conviction - are two others who made successful returns to football.

On the other side is Mossy Cade, a former Green Bay Packers defensive back who spent 15 months in prison for sexual assault. He signed with Minnesota upon his release in 1988 but was quickly let go because of public outcry. He never played again.

Smith said he left prison in 1994 a better basketball player than when he entered, because he concentrated on improving his shooting - the prison had a hoop - and adding strength.

"But basketball and football are different. Maurice is not getting hit in jail like he will be (in the UFL)," he said.

Gil Brandt, a former player personnel director for the Dallas Cowboys, thinks it highly unlikely that Clarett will be successful in his comeback.

"All you have to do is look at guys who went into the service for two years, and they never came back to where they were," Brandt said, adding that former Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach was the rare exception.

"History tells us it's extremely hard to do," Brandt said. "I hope for his sake that he can do it, but the odds are gigantic against it. It's like anything. If you go to college and stay away for a while, it's hard to reacquire study habits. If you work as a salesperson and take a year off, it's hard to get back to where you were. For a (football player) to come back after four years and understand how hard he has to work to be successful, it's almost unbelievable."

Brandt is skeptical that Clarett can beat the odds, given what he has seen of Clarett's previous work habits.

"He came to the (2005) combine and claimed he had been working out. He ran one 40-yard dash and couldn't run a second one," Brandt said.

But the physical requirements are just one piece of the picture, and not the most important one at that, said Smith, who now works as a bartender in Maryland.

"The main thing is, you have to be mentally prepared for life. Forget the football and basketball and baseball part of it," he said.

Smith, who was 23 at the time of his arrest, does not advocate that Clarett give up on his quest to play professional football, but to proceed carefully, keeping in mind that the media-fueled masses will focus on his failures.

Smith signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves after his release from prison in 1994 but played only eight games before bouncing around between European leagues and the Continental Basketball Association.

"In Minnesota the media kept bringing up my incident at all times," he said. "I decided to go overseas to play, because I was tired of hearing it. People will come at you from all different angles, both good and bad. I have denied so many interviews through the years."

Clarett has followed a similar path, declining media interviews since his release.

"People like negativity. The public will talk not so much about turning your life around, but what you did wrong," Smith said, adding that even teammates talked behind his back.

"They're not feeling sorry for you. They're trying to beat you out of a job. Whatever team I was on, they talked about me," he said. "They whisper, 'He's the guy who did this.'"

The trick is to tune it out, Smith said.

"It's about trying to better yourself as a person. I don't seek approval through other people," he said. "(Clarett) will be better off if he comes out and accepts how people feel about him."

Art Schlichter agrees.

"You've got to have a little bit of thick skin," said Schlichter, 50, the former Ohio State quarterback who was 36 and playing in the Arena Football League in 1995 when he began a 10-year stint in numerous jails and prisons across the Midwest for fraud and forgery, stemming from his addiction to gambling.

"Even though some things people said might have hurt me, some of those things were true and you have to be man enough to take them. The old saying is, 'I resemble that statement.'"

Schlichter watches the latest Clarett football saga play out and wonders which way things will go.

"There are some pros and cons," he said. "I was in good enough shape in prison that I probably still could have played when I got out. But by then I was just trying to survive life."

Of Clarett's comeback attempts, Schlichter said, "I think it's great. Here's a kid who, if he can still play, gets a shot to go back and do it. The thing I would worry about with Maurice is - every kid has hopes and dreams, and I'm sure his are as high as anybody's - when you're faced with a little adversity, or maybe your skills have eroded and you might not be able to play anymore ... I don't want to see the guy fall off the wagon because of that.

"It's all emotional. You had hopes, and you don't make it. You get depressed and lose self-confidence and start searching for other remedies of killing the pain. I hope that's not the case for him. If he tries to make it, great. If he makes it, even greater. If not, come home and make money the old-fashioned way. Like my friends used to tell me, 'Get a job.'"

roller@dispatch.com

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